A Shattered House
by SerpentBane007
Summary: In the grim darkness of the far future, heresy has reared its ugly head upon the world of Chult. In response, the Inquisitor Bastía Rex has summoned a Freeblade Knight named Nemoma Pahleed to help combat their dark influence. But things are not as they appear on Chult. Will Nemoma face the coming darkness, or fall prey to things she thought long buried? Rewrite of my original.


Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer 40k, GW does (for better or worse). This story takes place in the waning days of M41, and contains purely OC characters. I hope you enjoy this story, and please feel free to drop a review/PM with your thoughts!

Chapter 1:

_Nemoma was in the garden again with her father, under a calm and peaceful sky. The smell of dirt and flowers and rain filled the air, the nearly translucent petals of the native Kethri flowers creating innumerable small prisms. As if the stars had descended to rest for the day, and other their splendor to humanity for a little while longer. She closed her eyes, leaning against her father's large frame like when she had been a small girl. "Must you keep doing this my dear?" He spoke, a warm smile on his weathered face._

"_What, are you going to tell mother or Katona?" Nemoma replied with a hint of a smirk, playfully nudging him as he laughed. A laugh as clear as the wind, and could echo through the many rooms of his family's palace-complex._

"_Always a child, in the best ways of course. Yet you have grown into a fine young woman, a true heir to our house…" Whatever words he spoke afterwards trailed away into nothingness as the woman closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath._

_The world lurched, then slowed. The sounds fading away._

"_I'm sorry."_

_Now the smells were gone too. Something was different, wrong, but Nenoma couldn't force her eyes to open._

"_I couldn't protect you."_

_Still her eyes refused her commands. New smells assaulted her nostrils. Fire, things burning...blood._

"_RUN!" Finally her eyes snapped open as the tortured cry filled her ears. Suddenly he was no longer at her side, she stumbled as she found her balance without his frame to brace her. The garden was in flames, broken marble and rockcrete littering the area, as if the claws of some great beast had torn the sanctuary apart._

_As Nemoma rose her head towards the darkened sky, she found it was not far from the truth._

_The woman looked up at the blaring of war horns, the wall of sound nearly knocking her to the ground. Her father's grand Knight, a union of blessed machine and potent mind, towered above her. A chainblade of equal size erupting from its heart, impaling the war machine like a hunter displaying its kill._

"_FATHER!" Nemoma screamed as the broken body was flung away like a child's toy. Skidding several dozen meters before finally crashing against a wall of thick plasteel that did not disintegrate from the momentum. Another Knight stood where his had been, a twisted and barbaric mockery of the noble machine it had just murdered. Twin chainblades whirring so loud it threatened to deafen her._

_Finally the instincts of the body took control from Nemoma's stunned mind, forcing her to her feet and into a run. The abomination of a Knight projecting a maddening laugh from its vox speakers as it ran towards the burning city that lay below and next to the citadel._

_Her feet didn't stop, even as the screams and fire and blood and scenes that no human should ever see raced past her eyes. Sanctuary, it had to be somewhere in this hellscape that had once been everything she knew. She had to find him, he would protect her._

_She knew he would. He promised. He always-_

_A fresh cry of agony was torn from her throat as she stumbled. An autogun round had grazed her side, and as the woman held her hand to the wound she did not feel the thick warmth of blood. A stream of crystals poured from her side, covering the ground in a sea of diamond-like stars. At any other time, she might have found it beautiful...but instead it made her body cry out in agony, worse than any bullet wound should be._

_Legs gave out and collapsed, no longer able to support the weight of her body. Diamonds pooled around her as she finally heard a familiar, comforting sound._

_Chunk._

"_He's here…" Nemoma whispered, a barking laugh escaping her lips as she looked up. First in joy...before it shifted to horror._

"_No…"_

_The machine stood above her, the Knight appearing more as a Titan than the machine she had known so well. Twin battle cannons aimed down at her, barrels like gaping maws._

_The whir, then screech of vox communications assaulted her ears._

"_Such a pity…"_

_Fire appeared in the depths of the cannons, time slowed to a fraction of its speed._

_Then the shells raced towards her._

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Lady Pahleed...Lady Pahleed!" A new voice, a feminine one, spoke as Nemoma felt herself being shaken. With a started yelp she jumped off of the bed, landing on the floor and immediately drawing readying fists to combat the assailant.

"Who are you?! Fight me you...oh…" Her voice died as she saw the look of fear on the woman's face, on her back looking up at Nemoma with her hands up. It was Lutessa, the head astropath upon Nemoma's ship...her ship…

"Forgive me, I was not myself." She rubbed her forehead with one hand, standing and offering the other hand out to the woman. Lutessa took it, and with some difficulty brought herself to a standing position, several inches short of Nemoma's own five foot and eight inch height.

"Are you alright Lady Pahleed?" Lutessa asked, her voice full of worry as unnaturally orange eyes jumped from point to point feverishly, never quite focusing as they should have. After all, they were mechanical, a constant sign of her station...and the price that had come with it.

"Yes, I am now. And for the last time, you may call me Nemoma."

"...was it the dream again, Lady-I mean, Nemoma?" Her voice was more cautious now, hands wiping away the nonexistent dust of her deep blue robe. Nemoma nodded simply, not trusting her words to describe what she had seen. "If you wish, I am sure that when we next make planetfall I can get you some medicine to help you sleep." Lutessa offered, taking a small step forward.

"No." Nemoma barked, unintentionally harsh. Watching the woman, barely a month over twenty five standard years, cringe and cower at her tone caused a pang of guilt to well up within herself. "I'm sorry…" Nemoma started again, taking a deep breath. "I appreciate the concern, but I have no need of pills and snake oil treatments."

Lutessa nodded, still not speaking. Her hand now busy fixing some unseen fault with her hair, tucking a few recalcitrant strands of ebony black behind her ear.

Nemoma let the silence drag before letting out another sigh. "I take it you had something important to tell me then?"

"Oh! Yes, I did." She stumbled over her words for a moment before recollecting herself. "Magos Dominus Turalion thanks you again for your service, his Adepts will see to any repairs and resupply you should need as payment. Under the guidance of Magos Cairen, of course."

"Good, barely got out of that damnable mess he threw me in to."

"There was another message...from an Inquisitor." Both of them paused now, the sentence hanging in the air. The Inquisition? The Knight Houses of the Imperium were ever wary of their watchful eye...and Freeblades constantly ran the risk provoking their wrath.

And Nemoma had more reason to fear them than most.

"I see...what did this Inquisitor want?" She ventured, equal parts curious and apprehensive.

"He would not say, merely that he needed you. His ship will be dropping into orbit here within three days...and then he will come aboard to talk." Lutessa glanced around before whispering, as if the Inquisitor was with them in her quarters. "What do you think he wants?"

"I do not know." Nemoma shook her head solemnly, before putting a hand on Lutessa's shoulder. "But we must make sure we take every precaution. Tell Holius to put the crews into overtime, work them all night if they have to. _Dawntreader_ will be immaculate before the Inquisitor even enters the system, am I clear?"

"Of course, Lady Pahleed." The astropath bowed her head before moving to exit the room.

"How many more times must I tell you, you can call me Nemoma."

"At least once more...Lady Pahleed." A hint of a smirk pulled at her face before she disappeared from sight. A crooked smile crossed Nemoma's face as the heavy door slammed closed.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Several hours and one desperately needed shower later, Nemoma found herself traversing the labyrinth of halls and decks that made up the many decks of the _Dawntreader_. The decks kept as clean as any (insert ship class) ship could reasonably be expected to be, constantly a hive of activity from crew and servitor alike. With Holius' execution of Nemoma's order, the activity was near fever pitch, gangs of men and women working to make the ship as good as it was when it left the shipyards, or as close as humanly possible.

Though for Nemoma, the status of a very different piece of machinery was on her mind as she made her way to the main hold of the ship.

"What is the status on repairs Cairen?" She asked as she entered the massive hall, big enough to service a squadron of fighters and then some, though it was dedicated to something all together more valuable. Rising up twelve meters was an Imperial Knight, of the Errant pattern...her Knight. With its thick adamantine armor painted in blacks and bronzes, and sporting a massive thermal cannon and reaper chainblade, it was marked as a fearsome weapon of war, one nearly on the same level as the god-machines of the Collegio Titanica. Swarms of servitors and tech-priests crawled and stood upon its chassis like a cloud of insects, and they filled the air with the whining of servos, sputtering of tools and murmured binaric chants to soothe the machine's spirit. To Nemoma it was as soothing as any melody that could be found among Hiver nobility.

Breaking off from the group surrounding her Knight, a lone tech-priest approached her. He walked on six spider like metal legs, small clattering noises echoing as they skittered across the metal floor. Half a dozen mechadendrites swaying and twisting behind him, as if each one was a snake with a mind of its own. What passed as a face was purely steel, a vox-caster where an eye should be and three glowing green lights where a mouth would be. This was Cairen, a Magos of Ryza and one of the most important people in Nemoma's world.

"How go the repairs Cairen? She took a beating out there?" Nemoma asked as she stood beside her warmachine, resting a hand against the cool adamantine.

"Well enough, my lady." Cairen's voice warbled and hissed through the vox-caster, nodding his head on whirling servos.

"I do not have you on this ship for well enough, Magos."

"Quite so, but the machine spirit is restless after the battle. Not fully recovered from the thrill of combat, and some systems have proven...recalcitrant, despite our ministrations."

Nemoma sighed, unsurprised with the news. Every Knight pilot in the Imperium knew how their war machines had their own quirks, and her's was no different...though it had seemed to imprint off her more than its previous pilot.

"Then it should be welcome news that Magos Turalion will be sending more material to us before we depart, and ledning a few of his more skilled adepts to us."

Cairen responded with a burst of static, something that made Nemoma wince. She could only assume it was the Magos' equivalent to a grumble. "Turalion still little more than a vat-born child, he does not deserve the services of those beneath him."

"But he is still useful to us."

"To you." Was all Cairen responded with, as he dipped his body forward slightly in a bow, mechadendrites mirroring the motion, before he turned back to his work. "The repairs should be complete before the arrival of the Inquisitor, Lady Pahleed."

Nemoma was about to question how he knew of such a thing so soon, herself having meant to inform him personally, but silenced herself. The Magos had his secrets, and Nemoma knew it would take her too many centuries to unravel them all. There were more pressing issues to be dealt with.


End file.
